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Gurdjieff Describes Art
Gurdjieff has divided art into two categories. The modern art he calls
subjective art. The ancient art -- the real art -- the people who made the
pyramids, the people who made the Taj Mahal, the people who made the caves
of Ajanta and Ellora, they were of a totally different kind. He calls that
art objective art. Subjective art is like vomiting. You are feeling sick,
nauseous; a good vomit helps you to feel good. The poison is thrown out, you
feel relieved. It is good for you, but not good for others. Now, in
the name of modern painting, you are hanging vomited, nauseous, sickening
things in your rooms. In the name of modern music you are simply getting
into crazier spaces within you. It is subjective art.
Objective art means something that helps you to become centered,
that helps you to become healthy and whole. Watching the Taj Mahal in the
full moon, you will fall into a very meditative space. Looking at the statue
of Buddha, just sitting silently with the statue of the Buddha, something in
you will become silent, something in you will become still, something in you
will become buddhalike. It is objective art, it has tremendous significance. But
objective art has disappeared from the world because mystics have
disappeared from the world. Objective art is possible only when somebody has
attained to a higher plane of being; it is created by those who have reached
the peak.
They can see the peak and they can see the valley both. They can
see the height of humanity, the beauty of humanity, and the sickness and the
ugliness of humanity too. They can see deep down in the dark valleys where
people are crawling and they can see the sunlit peaks. They can manage to
create some devices which will help the people who are crawling in the
darkness to reach to the sunlit peaks. Their art will be just a device for
your inner growth, for maturity. Modern
art is childish -- not childlike, remember, childish; not innocent but
stupid, insane, pathological. We have to get rid of this trend. We have to
create a new kind of art, a new kind of creativity. We have to bring to the
world again what Gurdjieff calls objective art.
Gurdjieff
created phenomenal dances, very beautiful
Sutra from Vigyan Bhairav
Tantra
“In a moving vehicle, by Rhythmically swaying,
experience. or in a still vehicle, by letting yourself swing in slowing
invisible circles".
Gurdjieff created many
dances for such techniques. He was working on this technique. All the dances
he was using in his school were, really, swaying in circles. All the dances
were in circles – just whirling but remaining aware inside, by and by making
the circles smaller and smaller. A time comes when the body stops, but the
mind inside goes on moving, moving, moving. If you have been traveling in a
train for twenty hours, after you have come home, after you have left the
train, if you close your eyes you will feel that you are still traveling.
Still you are traveling.
The body has stopped,
but the mind is still feeling the vehicle.
So just do this technique. Gurdjieff created phenomenal dances, very
beautiful. In this century he worked miracles – not miracles like Satya Sai
Baba. Those are not miracles; any street magician can do them. But Gurdjieff
really created miracles. He prepared a group of a hundred people for
meditative dancing, and he was showing that dance to an audience in New York
for the first time. A hundred dancers were on the stage whirling. Those who
were in the audience, even their minds began whirling. There were a hundred
white-robed dancers just whirling.
When he indicated with his hand, they would whirl, and the moment he would
say, ”Stop,” there would be dead silence.
That was a stop for the audience,
but not for the dancers – because the body can stop immediately, but the
mind then takes the movement inside; it goes on and on. It was beautiful
even to look at, because a hundred persons suddenly became dead statues. It
created a sudden shock in the audience also, because a hundred movements –
beautiful movements, rhythmical movements – suddenly stopped. You would be
looking at them moving, whirling, dancing, and suddenly the dancers stopped.
Then your thought would also stop. Many in New York felt
that it was a weird phenomenon:
their thoughts stopped immediately.
But for the dancers, the dance continued
inside, and the inside whirling circles became smaller and smaller until
they became centered.One day it happened
that they were coming just to the edge of the stage, dancing. It was
expected, supposed, that Gurdjieff would stop them just before they danced
down the stage onto the audience. A hundred dancers were
just on the edge of the stage. One step more and they would all fall down
into the hall. The whole hall was expecting that suddenly Gurdjieff would
say stop, but he turned his back to light his cigar.
He turned his back to
the dancers to light his cigar, and the whole group of a hundred dancers
fell down from the stage upon the floor – on a naked stone floor. The whole audience
stood up. They were screaming, shouting, and they were thinking that many
must have broken their bones – it was such a crash. But not a single one was
hurt; not even a single bruise was there.They asked Gurdjieff
what had happened. No one had been hurt, and the crash was such that it
seemed impossible. The reason was only this: they were really not in their
bodies at that moment. They were slowing down their inner circling.
And when Gurdjieff saw that now they were completely oblivious of their bodies, he
allowed them to fall down.If you are completely
oblivious of your body, there is no resistance. A bone is broken because of
resistance. If you are falling down, you resist: you go against the pull of
gravity. That going against, that resistance, is the problem – not gravity.
If you can fall down with gravity, if you can cooperate with it, then no
possibility of being hurt will arise.
Source:
-
“Gurdjieff
Describes Art” from
“Dhammapada Vol 9” - Osho
-
“Gurdjieff
created phenomenal dances” from “Vigyan Bhairav Tantra”
- Osho
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